Love... On the Lighthouse

Welcome to Mammoth Lakes, California -- one of the top ski resorts on the west coast. It’s home to about 7,800 residents. Most came to live a life of fun on the slopes. But it's home to the Lighthouse Church.

Pastor Dave Nelson says, “We were just looking to give a home for 20, 25, 30 kids that were somewhere from 18 to 30. Most of them disconnected from church. We want to present a place that encourages them, releases them, endorses them and allows that creativity to just be released. So they might express the things of God. “

But how could Pastor Dave and his wife Stevie get a bunch of 20-something snow boarders and skiers interested in church? That’s when they came up with the idea for an outreach called “Dinner on the House”. They flag snow boarders and skiers off the slopes and invite them to dinner.

“It’s not about converting someone,” says Pastor Dave. “It is about loving them to the point that they say, ‘I want to know why. I want to know why are you loving me?’”

Stevie says, “They don’t come for us, but they come because others in their group come to Christ.”

The ministry has been so successful that they’ve expanded to New Zealand under the direction of the pastor’s daughter Natalie.

“The vision is to reach a real transit group,” Natalie says. “We noticed here in Mammoth, in New Zealand, and in Switzerland, there’s a group that goes from mountain resort to mountain resort to mountain resort, and with that, they get missed. They’re just somewhere for three months or six months. Our goal is to catch them and then connect them at the next place that they go to, wherever it is all over the world.”

So who are these young men and women? They’re people like Seiji who came down from Washington with a friend just looking for fun. What he found was a family and Christ.

Seiji says, “I had drifted away like a lot of other people had, and it was just instant connections -- instant family.”

Ester is from Switzerland. She says, “I love snow boarding. Seeing people who love doing the same and then seeing them praising God and going hard after God… it’s just amazing.”

Now with two locations, the Lighthouse has plans to expand even further to Switzerland. For all your efforts to be a beacon for God’s kingdom, The 700 Club honors the Lighthouse Church in Mammoth Lakes, CA, as America's Church of the Week.